Attainable After All
by HLJ137
Summary: *spoiler warning* this is a fix-it fic for 6x19 "The Geek Interpreter". Sherlock realizes that Joan was right: he is lonely. But after some frustrating introspection, he realizes she was also wrong: his unattainable love is not for Moriarty... Alternate ending to 6x19, this one is for you Joanlock shippers :)


_A/N: I'm not even sorry you guys XD after watching 6x19, I just HAD TO. It was the perfect opportunity... How could I pass this up? I don't write a lot of fix-it fics, so your thoughts would be much appreciated! Thanks for reading! Hope you all enjoy this :)_

* * *

After Harlan left, Sherlock started pacing around the apartment. He tried his best to focus on finding Lily's kidnapper, but he found he was unable to focus on the case. No matter how hard he tried, his mind kept wandering back to what Harlan had told him about Lily, and what Watson had told him about himself.

Harlan had mustered the courage and risked rejection to tell the woman he loved how he really felt, despite having thought she was unattainable for years. And it had worked. Harlan was no longer lonely, in fact he had never been happier.

 _Am I lonely?_ Sherlock wondered, trying to deduce how he actually felt.

 _Could I be happier?_ He found he greatly disliked spending time analyzing his own emotions.

Frustrated with himself, Sherlock shook his head furiously and tried to focus on the case. He analyzed the evidence again. He looked at one picture about ten times without ever really seeing it. His mind kept wandering back to his conversation with Watson and the subsequent one with Harlan. Sherlock had never thought of himself as a lonely man. In fact, he avoided thinking about his own relationships at all. But if Watson thought him lonely, perhaps she was right…

 _But no, Watson was wrong,_ he thought, _I don't love Moriarty. Not anymore_. How could Watson think he still wanted Moriarty when he had told her himself that he is post-love? Perhaps he would always love the idea of someone like Irene, but that was over, he had accepted that…

So why couldn't he stop thinking about how happy Harlan had looked after he'd confessed his feelings to Lily?

Sherlock looked at the clock. He had been pacing around the brownstone without a single breakthrough in the case for more than an hour. This business with love and feelings and relationships was becoming a bad distraction. He decided that if he was to get any work done, he had to resolve this issue within himself immediately.

He sat down in a chair with a thud and a frown. There had to be some explanation for why his mind kept alternating between Harlan's smile when he said he'd talked to Lily and Watson's sympathetic frown when she told him she thought he was lonely. There must be a reasonable answer.

Clearly, Sherlock had seen something of himself in Harlan's plight with Lily. So, he figured, perhaps Watson was right. Perhaps he is lonely. And, like Harlan, perhaps he is perpetuates in his loneliness because he is already in love with someone he knows he cannot have.

But Watson must surely be wrong, because he surely isn't in love with Moriarty.

Therefore, Sherlock surmised, deductive reasoning leaves only one explanation: the reason he is distracted is because he is lonely, and the reason he is lonely is because he is in love with someone unattainable. But that someone is _not_ Moriarty.

Unable to help himself, Sherlock got up and started pacing again.

* * *

After conferring with Marcus, Joan made her way back to the brownstone. When she arrived and opened the door, she heard Sherlock's heavy footsteps in the other room. That was the sound of the pacing he did when he was faced with a particularly difficult and vexing part of a case. Joan nicknamed it his "frustrated stomping", although she'd never tell him that. She smiled to herself and went into the other room to see what he was so frustrated about.

Sherlock was still stomping around when she got there. He seemed so deep in thought that he didn't even notice her entrance.

"Hey," she called, a bit loudly to let him know she was back.

Sherlock spun around at the sound of her voice. He looked momentarily stunned at her presence before he said, "Watson," there was a slightly awkward pause before he added, "you're back."

"Obviously," Joan said cautiously. "Any news on the case?"

Sherlock shook his head. "No," he said regretfully. "I fear I was rather, um, shall we say, distracted."

Joan noticed he was bouncing on his feet while he talked, something he did often when he was uncomfortable. He was definitely acting weird. Joan sighed. "Sherlock," she said, "you look upset. Is there something you want to talk about?"

Sherlock stared at her for a moment with a weird look on his face. Joan squirmed for a second as his stare intensified. She hated when he looked at her like he was going to deduce something; it always ended with him figuring out something about her that she preferred to keep private.

But this time, Sherlock didn't reveal one of her inner secrets. Instead, he sighed heavily and said, "in fact, there is something I'd like to discuss with you Watson."

His eyes never left hers, and Joan was starting to get concerned. "Okay…" she said warily. Sherlock said nothing, but quickly turned around and faced away from her. Now Joan was very concerned. "Is everything okay?" she asked, starting to approach him.

Sherlock turned around so fast that she nearly ran into him, startling them both. Impulsively, Sherlock took a quick step backward and said, "you were right." Joan squinted at him. She was about to ask him what she was right about, but he continued quickly, "I am lonely," he confessed, throwing his arms out to the sides in exasperation. "And perhaps you were also right that it is because I am in love with someone I can never have. That was probably why I was so annoyed by Harlan's attachment to Lily. I recognized his problem, and it resonated with me. I just never realized that the reason it annoyed me so profoundly was because I was suffering the same frustration. You know me better than anyone, so of course you would notice this before I ever did."

Joan squinted at him again, giving him a questioning side-glance. "You never tell me I'm right about you," she said questioningly. "What's going on?"

"I talked to Harlan," Sherlock said. He was still talking so fast, the words almost spilling out of him. Joan was not even sure he'd heard her. His eyes weren't focused, he was staring into space, his words more of a confession than even he realized. He went on, "Harlan confessed his feelings to Lily. And they were mutual. He said he has never been happier, and it was all because of me. Because I influenced him to reach for the unreachable, and by doing so he attained the person he had previously thought unattainable."

Suddenly, Sherlock's eyes stopped staring into space and zeroed in to focus on Joan's. Her eyes were narrowed in confusion. She was on the verge of asking Sherlock if she needed to get him a drug test when he said, "And then there's you." He paused just long enough for Joan's mouth to drop open, but not long enough for her to formulate a response before he said, "I've spent all day thinking about this, Watson. I tried to focus on the case, but I couldn't. I couldn't stop thinking about Harlan and Lily, and about you. You noticed I was lonely. You suggested that it was because I too am in love with someone I could never attain." He pointed his finger at her. "You were right about that." He dropped his hand down to his side and balled his fist before taking a small step closer to her. "But you were not right about who it is that I love but can never attain."

Joan just blinked at him, trying to process everything he had just told her. His words had all come out so fast that she had to run it over in her mind again to make sure she understood him right. Sherlock gave her a moment to process it all, but he was so close to her and his stare was so intense and distracting that Joan couldn't focus on figuring out what he meant. Finally, she asked quietly, "Then… Who is it?"

Sherlock smiled in a sad, self-deprecating way. "My dear Watson," he sighed, "haven't you figured that out?"

His meaning hit Joan like a freight train. She gaped at him, her face one of complete shock. She swallowed hard before gasping, "You mean…"

She knew. She couldn't quite bring herself to say it out loud, but she knew.

He knew she understood.

Sherlock dropped his gaze to the floor, clasping his hands behind his back. "Yes…" He said, a bit sadly. Dejectedly, he took a step backward, away from her. Still looking at the floor, he quietly said, "but as I said, it is unattainable. It can never happen. What happened for Harlan cannot happen for me."

Joan took two steps forward, so she was closer to him than she had been before he had stepped back. She stared at him until his eyes finally lifted from the floor and were drawn up to meet her own. She reached out her hand to take his, but then thought better of it and let her arm drop back to her side. Softly, she whispered, "why not?"

Sherlock's brow furrowed in confusion. He shrugged. "You know why," he said, a bit more harshly than he had meant to.

Joan said nothing. Her closeness was becoming another distraction, and Sherlock found himself unable to think straight. He tried to step back again, but to his dismay his back hit the wall. Joan kept staring at him, her shock giving way to quiet determination. She was going to make him say it. Sherlock flustered. "There is no one reason _why,_ Watson," he said, throwing his hands up. "It could never happen because we are partners. Because we are friends. Because I would never do anything that would risk this partnership. This friendship. _Your_ friendship. And because you deserve so much better than me, Watson, and you couldn't possibly –"

"Couldn't possibly what?" Joan interrupted him quickly. She put her hands on her hips. Sherlock recognized that as the stance she took when she was frustrated with him, so he thought it best not to say what he had been about to. Joan continued, "Do I even get a say in this, or have you already decided it's impossible? Have you already decided how I feel about it too?"

Now it was Sherlock's turn to gape at her. "I've upset you," is all he could think to say.

His confusion took Joan's anger away. Closing her eyes for a second, she sighed. When she opened them, Sherlock was still staring at her in confusion. "I'm not upset," she said softly, rubbing the bridge of her nose with her fingers. "It's just… A lot to process all at once."

Sherlock had nothing left to say. His words were spent, so he just kept staring at her. It unnerved her slightly. Finally, Joan looked back at him. "Are you going to tell me what it is you really want, or are you just going to keep denying yourself any chance at happiness because you don't think enough of yourself to imagine that anyone could return your feelings?"

Sherlock didn't say anything. He hadn't seen this coming. He hadn't prepared for this response from her, and he found himself unsure of how he was supposed to proceed. He was starting to wonder whether he should have said anything at all.

When it became obvious that he wasn't going to say anything, Joan sighed again. She took a tiny step closer until she was as close as she could be while still being able to look him in the eye. Slowly, she reached her hand out, and this time she didn't stop herself from taking his hand in hers. She was so close that she could tell his breathing was erratic. He was nervous, but so was she. Finally, she whispered, "Sherlock…" His hand tightened around hers. Her palm was getting sweaty. "Just tell me what you want."

Sherlock was lost in her eyes. He barely knew what he was saying when he whispered back, "all I really want is you."

Joan smiled at him, and Sherlock briefly wondered if he were dreaming. Slowly, Joan closed her eyes, stood on her tiptoes, and rested her forehead against his. They moved at the same time, their lips coming together in a sudden release of the desires they had each harbored and denied for so long. Joan let go of Sherlock's hand to reach both of hers around his neck, and she signed into him when his hands found the small of her back.

When they finally parted, Joan kept her forehead on his and smiled.

"See," she whispered against his lips, "not so unattainable after all."

Sherlock chuckled, running his thumbs in small circles on her lower back. "Mmmm," he murmured, "perhaps not." Joan laughed quietly and kissed him again, and Sherlock made a mental note to go see Harlan the next day and thank him for showing him that if you just have the courage to admit your feelings, happiness may just be attainable after all.


End file.
